The sharp-shooting, break-building, smooth-stroking snooker superstars of the LSE emerged triumphant after utterly destroying their competitors at the British Universities Snooker Plate like a psychotic Old Testament God. There also happened to be another concurrent tournament over the weekend referred to as ‘the main championship’ or something like that, which isn’t nearly as prestigious as the Plate.
On a high from the spectacular performance in the individuals, the LSE stars got down to business in the main team event. We only needed to come in the top 2 of the group to get through to the knockout stage, but obviously we were gunning for 1st place as our group contained such laughable opponents as Warwick 1sts, Southampton 1sts and York and Queens 2nds. It started off badly as we didn’t hear the call for our first match against York, resulting in an immediate 1-frame deduction. Given that we were actually 45 fucking minutes late, we were really rather lucky not to have been disqualified (bless you Paddy!). Technically we drew 5-5 against York but because of the frame deduction we lost 5-4.
Things got worse as we then played Warwick 1sts. The good news is that they were a man down as apparently one of their legends Jimmy Hill was deemed ineligible for BUCS. This meant we immediately had a 2-0 head-start! We lost 8-2. Alpesh played his best snooker of the weekend against Jay Murphy but still got raped. Will secured a 20 point lead against Matt Bradley but sadly also got forcibly penetrated as Matt knocked in two 40+ breaks. We then lost 8-2 to Southampton 1sts. Our last match against Queens 2nds was absolutely vital, we had to win and win big in order to avoid relegation by coming bottom. Unfortunately we drew and drew big… Will played some awesome snooker to secure the draw, getting a 65 point lead from only 3 visits. This meant we still had a chance of not coming bottom! Queens simply had to beat York at least 9-1.
That kinda didn’t happen. We were out. Bottom from the group, relegated to the Shield for next year, and left sitting in despair crying into our chips. Paddy informed us that we could still play in the plate (the competition for the 4 worst teams in the main championship, and the 4 worst teams in the Shield).
Will’s rationale was that we came here to play snooker, and we had a chance of playing some more, so why not? Why not indeed. Aqeel was sympathetic to Will’s suggestion, replying “bollocks, I don’t give a shit, I’m going”, and very nearly offered his signature Kadrian back-hand, the mental aggro maniac. Alpesh’s mood changed and he warmed to the idea. Then Ken said yeah why not. Finally, Paddy suggested that we should play as there would be some good crack there, which convinced Lee, as drugs would probably be the only thing that could have cheered him up at that point.
So off we went to the barren desolate wastelend surrounding the Excelsior Snooker Centre out of town, to face the rest of the useless teams who came last in their groups. It felt rather like being offered to compete in the Special Olympics. As we arrived we faced the incredibly friendly Kent 2nds and embarrassingly shook hands and said good luck. Kent 2nds had come bottom in their shield group, and Alpesh lost his frame. lolz. Fortunately however Lee, Aqeel and Ken won their matches so we were through to the SEMI-FINAL!! WOOOOOOO!!!
Here we faced the shouty incomprehensible force of Ulster 2nds, which necessitated concentrated lip-reading to understand what on earth they were saying. Lee and Aqeel both won by margins of 50+ points to put the LSE into a solid 2-frame lead and just needed one more to get to the plate final. Alpesh lost again to a team that came bottom in the shield. Ken also lost. We were 2-2 with Will ‘Balls of Granite’ Dee facing the slowest player ever in the deciding frame. A (s)crappy affair took place and despite getting an early lead Will miscued to leave the Ulster guy with a chance of leveling. And in fact he took the lead. Will was faced with a 10-foot pot down the rail on the green. Watching closely, Lee shouted telepathically to Will: “don’t go for the pot, don’t go for the pot, you stupid **** DON’T GO FOR THE POT!!” He went for the pot. And thank Christ he made it. He then had an almost as difficult pot on the brown. Will didn’t notice the vein in my forehead about to burst as obviously the only viable option was safety. Will thumped the long brown into the pocket. How the hell did he do that?? He then potted the blue but shanked the pink. Fortunately for him the Ulster guy didn’t capitalize and we were into the plate final!
Here we faced Warwick 2nds, who on paper are arguably the strongest 2nd team at the event. We beat them 6-0. Oh yes. We finally decided to play well, Alpesh knocking in a 40, Aqeel banging away a 34, it wasn’t even close. We had won the title of Best Losers! And with it the beautiful Saints Plate and… GOLD MEDALS! YYEEEEEAAHHHH!!!!! Next year we plan on retaining the title – but to do so we will have to come bottom in our Shield group, which will require some genuinely appalling snooker. With Alpesh, Aqeel and Ken graduating however, I think we can do it. Bring on 2011!
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